We covered the news that Pokémon Bank ends service on February 25, 2027, and that transfers to Pokémon HOME stop working the moment it does. This is the practical follow-up: how to actually move everything over before that deadline hits.

First, the requirement that trips people up most: moving Pokémon out of Bank and into HOME requires a Pokémon HOME Premium Plan subscription. The free tier of HOME can't receive a Bank transfer, so if you don't already have Premium, that's step zero.

If you still have your 3DS or 2DS and the Bank app installed, the transfer runs through both apps at once. In Pokémon Bank, open the main menu and select Move Pokémon to Pokémon HOME, then choose which Boxes you want to move. Once you've selected them, press the Y Button and confirm with Yes. Switch over to Pokémon HOME on your Switch, select Move from the main menu, then Begin Move and Begin. HOME will display a Moving Key. You've got three minutes to go back to Pokémon Bank and enter that key before it expires; once it's entered, the selected Boxes move over. If you're using the mobile version of HOME instead of the Switch version, the flow is the same in spirit, just navigated through slightly different menus.

There's also a route for people who no longer have a working 3DS at all. As long as the Nintendo Account tied to your Pokémon HOME and the Nintendo Network ID tied to your Pokémon Bank account are linked, you can complete the transfer using only Pokémon HOME, no 3DS required. The catch is that this method moves everything in Bank at once rather than letting you pick specific Boxes, so it's an all-or-nothing option rather than the more controlled Box-by-Box process.

A few things worth checking before you start: make sure you actually remember the Nintendo Network ID and password tied to your Bank account, since that's easy to lose track of after years of not touching the app, and don't wait until the final week to attempt this if you can help it. Nintendo's shutdown announcements have a habit of causing last-minute traffic spikes as everyone tries to move their data at once, and a service that's actively being wound down is not where you want to be fighting server congestion with only days left on the clock.

Once everything's safely in HOME, that's it, HOME becomes the only storage layer you need going forward, and it's the same place Pokémon transferred in from FireRed and LeafGreen's Switch ports will land starting in October, alongside the storage capacity bump to 9,000 boxed Pokémon for Premium subscribers.

Sources for this piece: Nintendo Support) and Kotaku.